Brasslung Bill

William Jones Peters (a.k.a. Brasslung Bill)

Brasslung Bill is the charismatic leader of the Reckoners, and the pirate king scourge of the Waste. There are few who have not heard his name at least in passing. He is a bizarre creature, more than just your average rail pirate, for he and his entire crew are outfitted with mechanical augmentations that vastly improve their endurance and power. He is the Rail Baron and all Hunters' bitterest enemy, for the rail pirate solely targets white coal shipments and stockpiles, which fuel his crew's and his own mechanical parts.

Physical Description

Body Features

Brasslung Bill's entire body, save for most of his head, is entirely mechanical. His mechanical body is slim, almost resembling a metal skeleton, but it is still extremely strong as well as agile. Due to this remarkable condition, he is extremely hard to kill as long as he has access to white coal, which is used to power his mechanical parts. He possesses two filed down horns(think hellboy) below his hat, but he never shows them.

Facial Features

Brasslung Bill's face shows his true age, as it appears extremely old. On top of that, it is heavily warped from white coal exposure, leaving his only human parts seeming barely human. His skin is pale, practically grey, and while it sags in some spots it is unusually tight on the skull in others. His only non-replaced eye, his right, is cloudy and sightless, though strangely he has not replaced it. The lower half of his face, including his nose, is replaced by a metal mask, which contains a few holes for speaking and insertion of nutrients or white coal cigars.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

William was once an inventor, working on mechanical prosthetics powered by white coal, hoping to help people. But no matter how hard he tried, he could never get his creations to work. Eventually, he ended up seeking out the Devil to get the knowledge of how to perfect them, in exchange for his soul after death. But his pact transformed him into planetouched, causing him to grow a set of horns. He was chased away from his home, and eventually took a train for the Waste. He attempted to sell his creations, but they had an unintended side affect: due to the pact, anyone modified by them was turned into planetouched as well. People soon learned to stay away from his inventions, and he put them away for forever. That is, until he began to grow old, and his health began to fail. He realized that when he died, his soul would be the Devil's, and opted to instead use his own inventions to prolong his life. He went to others like him, who had made a pact and feared death, and offered his inventions to them in exchange for fealty, and he began building up a crew. They began raiding stockpiles and shipments of white coal, and were soon known widely. They were known as the Reckoners, for their charismatic leader preached that a reckoning was coming, and that he could save the sinners from their judgement. That leader, William, became known as Brasslung Bill, for his smoking habit and repeated coughing.

Morality & Philosophy

Brasslung Bill hates killing people. The way he views it, few people are good enough to get into heaven, and in the Waste their numbers are even fewer. He doesn't like the idea of damning anybody to the fate that he has tried so hard to avoid, and will avoid killing as much as possible. He tends to attack low-population targets, and always leaves the survivors what they need to survive and make it back to civilization, or offers them the choice of joining him.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

Primarily, Brasslung Bill is driven by fear of death, because he has full knowledge of the fate that awaits him after death, due to the pact he made with the Devil many long years ago. He wants to live forever, so that he never has to make good on his agreement.

Virtues & Personality perks

Despite his obvious evil, Brasslung Bill has a few redeeming features. He tries his hardest to avoid killing, though if it comes down to one of his own or one of an enemy's he'd choose to take out the enemy. Whenever one of his subordinates perishes, he experiences genuine grief for them, and the afterlife he knows they must now face. Additionally, while Bill doesn't exactly help to redeem sinners, he offers them a chance at something great, despite what evils they may have committed.

Vices & Personality flaws

Brasslung Bill has a heavy smoking addiction, though his cigars are not filled with the normal ingredients you would expect. Instead, he smokes a special blend that incorporates a very special ingredient: white coal. He uses the magical white smoke produced by it to fuel his mechanical body. Due to this habit, he has developed quite a cough, despite his titular brass lungs that are much more efficient than a normal human's.

Social

Religious Views

Brasslung Bills views the church's promises of Heaven as foolish. He certainly believes in Heaven and God, just as much as he believes in Hell and the Devil, but he does not believe that anyone save for the most pious and virtuous are worthy enough to make it to Heaven. Instead, he believes that the vast majority of people have one afterlife waiting for them: the pits of Hell.

Social Aptitude

Brasslung Bill is extremely charismatic, which he shows in leading the Reckoners and recruiting for them, putting the fear of death and Hell in sinners and offering them salvation in the form of joining the Reckoners and being enhanced by his technologies.

Wealth & Financial state

Brasslung Bill possesses considerable sums of money, from his various raids on white coal shipments. For the most part, however, he keeps his gains from the raids, and due to this he has quite a massive stockpile of white coal. Much of this is stored in safehouses, or in his personal railtrain, the Absolution.

Alignment

Lawful Evil

Age

110

Pronouns

he/him

Gender

male

Eyes

Left red crystalline, right grey cloudy

Hair

Long, sparse, and stringy

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Greyish

Height

5'9"

Weight

344 lbs

Aligned Organization

The Reckoners